Connect to PsycINFO

This database is ideal for...

  • ...when you want both popular and scholarly sources in psychology
  • ...when you want to find articles from magazines, journals, professional publications, dissertations, or book chapters
  • ...when you want to find resources on current topics in psychology
  • ...when you need something right away (full text is available)!
  • ...when you want sources on a wide variety of subjects such as: psychological research studies, clinical studies, counseling, behavioral studies, social issues, mental health, personality, and much more!

Database Description:

PsycINFO provides abstracts and citations to the scholarly literature in the behavioral sciences and mental health. The database includes material of relevance to psychologists and professionals in psychology and related fields such as psychiatry, management, business, education, social science, neuroscience, law, medicine, and social work. PsycINFO covers journal articles, book chapters, books, dissertations, and technical reports. Journal coverage includes international material selected from more than 1900 periodicals written in over 24 languages. Current chapter and book coverage includes worldwide English-language material published from 1987-present. Over 60,000 references are added annually through weekly updates.

Produced by:

The American Psychological Association

Dates covered:

From 1967 UPDATES: Weekly.

Search Tips:

Searching Thesaurus or Keywords:

PsycINFO has three special options on its search menu:

  1. Thesaurus: Search your word or phrase in the PsycINFO thesaurus.
  2. Keywords: Search your word or phrase everywhere in the database, except for cited references.
  3. Keywords plus cited references: Search your word or phrase everywhere in the database, including cited references. Select this option for any field-qualified searches.

Wildcard / Truncation:

PsycINFO uses a dollar sign ($) to truncate terms.

Boolean Operators:

PsycINFO uses: ADJ, AND, OR, NOT, NEAR, SAME, WITH

ADJ:

Finds records that contain both words right next to each other, in the same sentence, and in the order given in the search statement. Adjacency is the default search operator for these databases, so it is usually not necessary to specify. ADJ is the same as the menu choice SEARCH FOR THIS EXACT PHRASE.

ADJn:

Finds records that contain both words, in the same sentence, in the order given, where "n" specifies the maximum number of indexable words from the first to the second. This is similar to ADJ, except that you are permitting some number of intervening words.

AND:

Finds records that contain both words, although not necessarily in the same sentence or in the given order. AND ties the two concepts together and provides a more narrow search than just a single word alone.

OR:

Finds records that contain either word or both words. Use OR for synonymous or related terms; this broadens the search.

NOT:

Finds records that contain the first word and that do not contain the second word.

NEAR:

Finds records that contain both words right next to each other, in the same sentence, in either order. This is similar to ADJ, although with NEAR, the words may occur in either order.

WITH:

Finds records that contain both words in the same sentence. The system recognizes a sentence as ending with a period-space-space. Some databases supply just a single space at the end of a sentence so, for example, all the sentences in an abstract seem to the system like a single sentence. In such fields, WITH produces the same results as SAME.

Limiting:

Limit results by language, date, publication type, or study type (human, tests & measures, etc.)

Locating Full Text:

Many articles are readily available as either HTML (word-processed full text within the database) or PDF files (links to scanned images of the article). Articles without full text may link to full text with the “Find It” link.

OhioLINK’s OLinks Linking Service:

Click FIND IT to discover how to get a copy of the article:
  • If the full text of a journal article is available online, FIND IT can connect you directly to it.
  • If online full text is not available, check whether your library owns the journal in print or any other format.
  • If this item is a book and is found at an OhioLINK library, you can determine whether your library owns it, or request it from another library.

Visit the full database support site for PsychINFO from EBSCOhost:

http://support.ebsco.com/help/index.php?help_id=DB:803


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